


rainbow mother earth

by novakid



Series: i'm so sorry [1]
Category: DCU, Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Freeform, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novakid/pseuds/novakid
Summary: Barry Allen is dead. Hal Jordan has a hard time coping.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Hal Jordan
Series: i'm so sorry [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616515
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	rainbow mother earth

_Can you really love it all_   
_In a world that’s not worth loving?_   
_That can’t be loved_   
_At least not in its entirety_   
_Tell me who does the sun turn her back on?_

hal doesn’t normally sleep this much. hal doesn’t normally drink this much either. or smoke a pack a day. or shut himself in his apartment this long. he’s not usually a hermit. he was always the sort of guy who loves to get out of his home and visit new places.

some things change.

it’s been so hard lately.

hal didn’t stay for long at barry’s funeral. he couldn’t handle staying to watch iris cry. it didn’t feel right to be at any event without his best friend.

but maybe he should have stayed longer. maybe if he knew what was ahead of him, that he’d start to close himself off from his friends and coworkers-- maybe if he knew how alone he’d be now, he’d have tried to enjoy the company. 

but hal jordan doesn’t take the time to think. he acts. gut instinct. 

so stupid.

every movement out of bed is taxing. he doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to think. his best fucking friend is dead and his heart is breaking from it. this is how _he’ll_ die, hal thinks. not to a bad guy. not from a heroic sacrifice. starving to death in his room because he can’t muster up the energy to leave the coffin he’s built himself.

but hours pass by. beer runs out. there’s no excuse to stay in bed, so hal tears his body off of the sheets. what first? how do you take care of yourself again? what was his usual routine, has he been sulking long enough to forget already?

shower first, he recalls. does he really want to go through the whole ordeal of showering? in his state, he’d probably stand there for far too long, waste too much water. he’ll rinse in the sink, then. brush his teeth. 

walking is punishing, breathing is an effort, and looking in his mirror is near impossible. his face is greasy, his eyes are sunken, and his hair--

“lookit that. grey hairs. _in my thirties._ ” he spits out bitterly, angrily, frustratedly. the thought of brushing his teeth seems pointless now. where’s he going to go? outside to get the mail?

...it’s been hard lately.

hal brushes his teeth, he heads to the kitchen, and he stares at an empty fridge.

“i could starve here,” he strolls through the kitchen, opening the cabinets to check if there’s anything left at all he could eat, “and they’d replace me. they brought in john. and guy. they can find someone else. the ring can find someone better.”

someone who can save their best friend.

he swallows thickly. he needs to get out of here.

shirt, jeans, shoes, jacket. it takes longer than it needs to, but he’s out. 

it’s a bright day out. it’s a beautiful day out. in fact, it pisses hal off how fucking gorgeous of a day it is. 

a day like this shouldn’t be this beautiful. a day like this should be dark, and overcast, and rainy, or windy, and should have a bunch of crows or something making noise and bothering people.

something like bile simmers in the back of hal’s throat, and that same sharp acid is also in his chest. in his head. his hands are trembling. 

why is he like this? why is this happening? 

“you’ve been inside too long.” hal murmurs to himself as he hurries down the crosswalk. “you’re sick and sad and stupid. but you’re never going to get better if you keep wallowing.”

he trips on the sidewalk and accidentally bumps into someone. he’s too shell shocked to say sorry when he gets yelled at by a passerby.

“it’s just… one of those days, jordan.”

“a beautiful one at that, isn’t it?”

hal turns around so fast he nearly gets whiplash. “diana?”

diana, wonder woman, is here. dressed as a civilian. besides her whole “amazonian beauty” thing, she looks just like any other average jane passing them by. “that’s me. have you eaten yet?”

hal blinks and shakes his head, he’s not sure if it’s obvious, or if diana flew all the way over to coast city just to check up on him, and watched him leave the house for the first time in days. he hasn’t exactly been answering any calls.

“want to accompany me to a diner? my treat.”

“uhm, i don’t know--”

“you’ll pay the tip, then.”

and then hal finds his way to an unremarkable diner (he’s been here before) with wonder woman herself. they didn’t say much on the way over, but as she’s looking through the menu, she speaks up.

“it’s a wonderful day, isn’t it?”

“uh huh.”

“it was nice yesterday too.”

“yeah.”

“did you go out yesterday?”

“i-- a little bit.”

“really?”

“i mean, to get the mail.”

diana looks quizzically at hal over her menu for a moment, before returning her gaze back to the drink section. “shame. perfect weather for the beach.”

“were you here in coast city yesterday?”

“i was. figured i’d treat myself. i was going to stop by, but i didn’t want to barge i-- oh? yes, can i have the eggs benedict and a glass of water? thank you. hal, have you decided what you--”

“oh, uh, yeah. uh, i’ll have…”

“if you need more time,”

“no i’m fine, i uh-”

“she can just take down your drink. sorry, i--”

“no, it’s fine, really. coffee--”

“oh, i think i will also have a coffee. are you sure you don’t need more--”

“mushroom and steak omelette.”

“oh, and home fries? yes. thank you.”

they give their menus back to the waitress and diana smiles at hal. when hal doesn’t smile back, she lets her shoulders fall and her expression soften. “i miss him too, you know.”

“huh?”

“barry allen. i miss him as well.”

so not only is his sulking obvious, but who he’s sulking for too. “listen, you don’t have to do this.”

“i don’t. but i want to. you are my friend, hal jordan. he was also my friend.”

he was. he was everyone’s friend. who didn’t like barry allen? but it was different for hal. no one in the league got that. hal and barry? they weren’t just friends. they were _best_ friends. and the hole that barry left when he died is too big to fill. it aches too much to bear. hal feels lost without that beacon of hope to help find his way back home. 

“i’m sorry, hal.”

and there’s that word. sorry. like hearing one hundred sorries is going to fix the aforementioned hole in his chest. hal sighs through his nose and rubs his temples with his thumb and pointer finger. “look, it’s just been…”

“hard?”

he looks up. “...yeah.”

diana thanks the waitress as their drinks and food arrive. suddenly, hal isn’t feeling all that hungry. but he picks up his fork and brings the food to his mouth, trying to will himself to eat.

_willpower my ass,_ he thinks.

“you know what my favourite thing about earth, is?”

“that you live here? it’s your home.”

diana grins and shrugs her shoulders. “my home is themyscira. it would be easy to say i love the island i grew up on instead of the planet i live on. a lot of people don’t like other places in the world that are not their own.”

hal thinks about his home. coast city. how much he loves it here, loved growing up here, loved the way the sun shined onto his city, how he knows every corner of it, and memorized every hour the planes routinely flew over his home. he purses his lips and nods, allowing diana to continue.

“aphrodite blessed us with immortality. as long as no man stepped foot on our land, we could live forever in our utopia.”

“sounds fun.”

she shrugs and grins into her coffee mug. “it was boring.”

“was it?”

“don’t get me wrong. i owe it to my home and my sisters. it made me who i am today. but when it’s always the same place and always the same people…”

“so you got sick of it.”

“not necessarily.” diana gazes out the window wistfully. “i never thought anything was missing until i left.”

“what was it missing? pudding?”

“no. well-- yes. i think i would have loved pudding as a child. but i’m talking about change.”

“change?”

“change.”

“okay.”

she smiles and continues, “buildings fall. new ones are built on top of them. trees grow, and they grow, and they grow, and they’re cut down or forest fires turn them to ashes, and new ones are planted, or they’re moved somewhere else, and the squirrels find a new place to live. people die, and they’re mourned, but babies are born, and they live these beautiful, complicated lives. and they die. and it’s sad, yes, but they are remembered. and the people who remember them live on, and they’re sad, and happy, and angry, and they fall in love, and they make new life.”

diana has a fond smile on her face as she looks out the window and at the people passing by.

hal wishes this would make him feel better. “what about the bad things in the world?”

she looks at him. “i suppose there’s a lot of that. but do you honestly think they shadow all the good?”

he’s sure diana doesn’t think so. maybe barry wouldn’t either. hal just averts his gaze and finishes his coffee. he doesn’t want to get into that conversation. or any, really. not right now.

“think about it. and remember, i’m always here to talk.” but she stands up, as if reading his mind. “i must depart now, but you know where to find me.”

“yeah. thank you, diana. really.”

she places a soft hand on his for a moment and squeezes before letting go. they wave goodbye and hal is left alone again.

he chances a look out the window. and it _is_ a nice day. one he wishes he could enjoy.

but something in him feels hollow and aching. and he gets a frightening thought.

will he ever feel better?

**Author's Note:**

> this is the beginning of a new, short series i'm working on about hal jordan, parallax, grief, and regret. based off of a 4 song album (which will be linked in the series description)  
> still new to writing hal. never wrote diana before, but her backstory resonated with me and fit into this, so i hope i did okay with her.
> 
> [link to the song](https://blacksquares.bandcamp.com/track/rainbow-mother-earth-feat-dino-and-circuitfry)


End file.
